2007 The Year in Photos....

2007 was a very special year for us here. Many things took place, it was our first full calendar year in Hilo, we moved into our new house, loved ones came to visit, others left.....

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. This year as every other year started with.......

January
This was one of those months where A LOT of big things happened, such as:

Nonna & Nonno came to Hilo for the first time

At the airport

In Kona

At Volcanoes National Park

Celebrating Syd's Birthday at Seaside

This was also the month where we were Working on Waianuenue House getting it ready to move in...

Before

After working on floors

kitchen

bathroom.... And by the end of the month we were Packing Up Plum Palace with the help of Kimo and his big banana truck! (Mahalo Kimo!)

Syd's Birthday Spa-rty Sleepover. To celebrate her birthday Syd invited about 85 friends for a sleepover-spa party....(well, at least it felt like 85 friends...)

oh brother, and all that was just in January! this is going to be one long blog entry...so bear with us. After January obviously came:

February

which was a much calmer month.... the only big thing to report was a trip we did with our friends the Follets' during President's day weekend to Kona to a soccer tournament....

As you probably guessed, February was followed by ........

March

which is always a big busy month, for this month we celebrate

Charlotte's Birthday! This year we had a wonderful Hawaiian dinner at our friends' Leslie and Macario's house.....hmmm

but that was not it, we also celebrated at the Farm where the Alan Wong Cookout took place! this was a month of plenty of good eating!
That is Alan Wong himself adding the finishing touch to one of the many dishes that were prepared in one of the several cooking stations being manned by several of his cooks!

Charlotte and Richard in front of Richard's cool wagon
Charlotte holds Emma Rose for Leslie so that she can use her two hands to fully enjoy her fifth plate at the cookout

In March we also had visitors from Arizona, first came Ursula to a conference, so we watched her daughter Sophie for a day....

Then we had the privilege of having David in our house for a couple of days. We had a very special time with him during his visit at the botanical gardens...

And he helped us build a cabinet for our new dishwasher (gift from nonna and nonno)

and last but not least there was St. Patrick's Day in which Angus and Dee had a monster party in the carport while we were gone.....April

Another big month that was highlighted by the arrival of the newest member of the family...

TIGER!

we also had the Merry Monarch Parade

Easter Egg Decorating

Easter Egg Hunt

New Looks! Ooh la la!

moving along into

May

which brought a first of many trips to Tucson for me, Field trip for Syd's class, Hana's ears pierced, trips to the beach, May Day at School, Luau at Leslie and Macario's.....

visiting Family in Tucson

Visiting Neighbors

Friends at the Folk Festival

Good Friends (and future inlaws?)

Good Friends with new baby new friends!

and Hiking Ventana Canyon with old friends

Syd's class field trip

Hana's ears pierced

May Day at St. Joe's

Day at the beach

Stargazing trip to Mauna Kea (brrrr!)

Luau hmmm......

And then we headed full steam into the summer months of...

June

which is when we celebrated our 1st anniversary of living in Hawai'i with a big Mexican Fiesta, girls end of their first year of school, surfing and boogie boarding at the beach, building a fire pit and a tree house, and Hana learns how to ride a bike!

Fiesta Time!... Andale, andale, arriba, arriba!
Kindergarden graduation (!?) at St. Joe's

At Honoli'i

A new fire pit

Riding a bike!

And once June was over we had....

July

This month's big even was Charlotte's family from the mainland coming to visit, we had Aunt Sharon, cousin Kiki, cousin Missy and her husband Tom and daugher Gillian, aunt Joyce and uncle Peter, cousin Beth (all the way from upstate NY), cousin Jason, and Syd's best friend Lu...

(I was gone to Portugal all this time in a conference having a boring boring time....)

Also the Volcano AYSO soccer tournament took place this month...

All was going well during the summer until we moved in into

August

Sad month, it was during this month that Dee's health started to deteriorate and finally on the 25th we had to put her to sleep........

She will be missed

September

This month was taken up by "The Return of the Nonna"..... nonna's second visit to Hilo, when she met and tried to steal (succesfully) our friend Leslie by giving her a painting of Emma Rose...

October

Hana's birthday month and Halloween!!!

Hana's Party!!

Halloween

almost over.... but first, there is

November

Trip to the beach in Kona with the Cookes'

Duncan (McCraken) Livingston and family visited from Tucson

Jane visited from Tucson

Charlotte starts Girl Scout troop and they are invited to the opening ceremony of Vet's Center

Birthday and thanksgiving in Oahu with Charlotte's cousin Mark and Casey and her husband Big Ben.

Hiking trip to Waimanu

and last but not least......

December

Girl Scout Christmas Carol singing at Downtown Hilo

Girl Scount Arts & Crafts Camp

And CHRISTMAS!!!!

To all our friends and family

from far and near

we hope you have a wonderful time

this coming year!!!